


Ghosts

by stardropdream



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, xxxHoLic
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 10:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He listens like he is drowning, like Fuuma is feeding him the last drops of water before he’s left alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ April 5, 2012.

  
  
“I suppose you’re my boss now,” Fuuma says, cheerfully, brushing the lingering inter-dimensional magic off his shoulders. After so many years of hopping between worlds, he thinks he should be used to it. But he really isn’t. His knowledge and experience with magic extends entirely to what other people can do, never his own talents. So it’s a strange feeling, to always feel the magic but never actually possess it. But that’s how it is.   
  
“Yes,” comes the quiet reply.   
  
Watanuki sits on the veranda, smoke curling from the pipe in his idle hand. The kimono he wears slips off one shoulder, but he is not yet confident enough to own such exposure, and his hand gropes uneasily at the fabric and pulls it back up over his shoulder again, holding it in place for a moment. It is a graceful movement, pronounced and certain, but it makes Fuuma smile all the same to see the instability there, the inorganic nature to the movements.   
  
“Welcome,” Watanuki says and Fuuma inclines his head in return.   
  
He is unsurprised to see Watanuki this way, although perhaps he should be. He accepts it for what it is. A transfer of hands. His debt transfers, as well. So it’s all the same to him. The significance is not lost on him, but, at the same time, it wouldn’t be Yuuko without the implication of changes in the future—so perhaps he’d always been expecting this to be the case.   
  
“Here,” he says, extracting his most recent job—a little glass globe with swirling wisps of magic, like a cats-eye marble—from his pocket and placing it in Watanuki’s outstretched hand.   
  
He sits himself down on the veranda, kicking off his boots and leaning back on his elbows. Making himself comfortable. He looks around for Mokona, or Moro and Maru, but none of them seem to be around for the time being. It’s too bad, since Fuuma did enjoy drinking with Mokona or having the girls’ sing-song greet him. But, no, today, he is scheduled to spend time with his mourning boss. So it went.   
  
Watanuki resumes smoking. Fuuma relaxes, occasionally glancing up at his profile and studying his face. Sad. Lonely. Waiting.   
  
He knows the expression well.  
  
“You have it tied wrong, you know,” he says conversationally, after a long silence in which it was clear no one was going to talk. Usually he’d be fine with silence, but comfortable silences are best obtained after the relationship is set. They do not know each other, not really.   
  
“It is?” Watanuki asks.  
  
“Oh, sure, “Fuuma says. “That’s why it keeps falling off like that.”  
  
Watanuki freezes for a moment, before he drops from his shoulder from where he was, yet again, fixing the slipping kimono sleeve.  
  
“She would scold you if you wore her outfits incorrectly.” He says it as a joke, but knows that it won’t be taken as such, that, more likely, the reminder will act only as a sharp barb of pain.   
  
Sure enough, Watanuki’s smile tightens for a moment, before it sinks away to something infinitely sad. He lowers his head for a moment, the smile completely gone.   
  
“Yeah,” he says, softly.  
  
“I can tie it for you,” Fuuma says, with a sigh. He’s still smiling benignly, a contrast to the impossible sadness in Watanuki’s eyes.  
  
“You know how?” his new boss asks.   
  
“From experience,” Fuuma says with a deep laugh, sitting up and moving to sit behind him, working at the ties of the kimono. “Mother and nii-san made sure of that. I could tie them with my eyes closed.”  
  
Watanuki doesn’t respond to this, unsurprisingly. He is still as Fuuma works, gloved hands perhaps lingering on his back, his shoulders, his arms for a moment too long. Fuuma doesn’t complain—although the unresponsiveness is something to get used to. He’s grown used to fiery power beneath his fingertips. Even with that impossible-to-ignore sadness, Kamui never let him forget who was stronger. The silence and lack of response now reminds him of something from the past. Childhood. Some things he’d rather not focus on.   
  
Then again, he is the one to call up the past, isn’t he? He expertly ties the kimono, adjusts the folds and sleeves.   
  
“Much better,” he decides. He pulls back.   
  
Watanuki sits, studying the fabric and saying nothing. His eyes are far away, lost, lingering on things no one else can see. It’s to be expected. And yet it’s terribly familiar.   
  
Fuuma falls back, lying on his side and soaking up the last rays of the late afternoon sunshine. The long silence stretches on, punctuated by distant car noise and the soft chirp of cicadas. It’s comforting. Fuuma can almost forget the things he tries hard to ignore. He can almost pretend it’s a normal night.   
  
Presently, Watanuki shifts to stare at the glass eye Fuuma gave him earlier. “What did she have you get this for?” he asks. “What does it do?”   
  
“No idea,” Fuuma says, knows he is disappointing, knows Watanuki was hoping for some past connection. He isn’t as willing to give up that past, now. Already he’s exposed too much of himself, perhaps without Watanuki realizing or caring.   
  
He tucks his arms behind his head, pretends to doze. Eventually, he even does fall asleep.   
  
When he wakes up, he blinks his eyes open, regards Watanuki over the edge of his glasses. He hasn’t moved. He still sits there, holding the glass eye delicately, as if it would shatter, as if it is the only connection left between himself and the woman who left him behind.   
  
Fuuma sighs out. Watanuki doesn’t glance his way, but they are both aware of one another.   
  
“I can tell you about her,” Fuuma says after a long silence. Watanuki looks back at him. “You would probably know more about her, though.”  
  
“Please tell me,” Watanuki whispers.  
  
So Fuuma tells him about when he first met her, how she granted his wish. He tells him about his errands, the few times he’d finally landed in her backyard in order to deliver goods. They’re small, insignificant stories. Hardly worth anything. Hardly important or interesting to anyone else. Half the time, Fuuma struggles to remember details about the insignificant moments—other times remains purposefully vague about his own details, not yet ready to reveal these things he’s left behind.   
  
Watanuki listens with starling attention, never once interrupting. He listens like he is drowning, like Fuuma is feeding him the last drops of water before he’s left alone. It’s almost pathetic, almost painful, even for him.   
  
He finishes his stories, and they lapse into silence. Night is falling. The sun burns the sky the dark colors of sunset.   
  
Fuuma tilts his head to the side, watches Watanuki. “Your eyes weren’t always so sad.”  
  
“No,” he agrees.  
  
“It can’t be helped, I suppose.” He stretches out on the veranda. “And I don’t suppose you have a job for me.”  
  
Watanuki studies the eye. The cats-eye magic inside is deep red, swirling like butterfly wings.   
  
“More of these,” Watanuki decides.  
  
“Of course,” Fuuma says, smile never once wavering.


End file.
